"What shape is your outfit in and are you recruiting?" - ReachCast Episode 56 CQ

[ReachCast]

This weeks question is ...

“What condition is your Planetside 2 outfit in and why? Also is your outfit actively trying to recruit and how?”

as always if you would like to call or email in your answer below is that info

Email us at [email protected]
Call us at (415)787-3224

[Mastachief]

We are in good shape.

As a small group of players (45 active guys/gals total for ps2) with many players (50% having played together for 5-9 years).

Our recruitment is open but we can afford to be picky, looking for good players that enjoy close knit team play and fun who also gel with existing members.

90% activity within the past 7days.

Currently we are averaging 1-2 good new members per month. We do have a member cap governed by daily activity (we don't want more than around 35 guys on TS as it gets messy above this.)

[Sentrosi]

Our outfit officially shut its doors to recruiting on Sunday October 13th. The main issue was a general lack of interest by most of our outfit members.

We had begun to see a steady decline in our ops nights around May of this year. We have been part of gaming for over 10 years and I thought this was our yearly, "Hey, the sun is out now. We should really go outside and do things" time within our outfit. And, for some, it was exactly it. The school years winding down, people moving from college back home, all that stuff. So we sort of attached ourselves to Imperial Reach for the summer time to keep our numbers up. And that worked for a while. We would attend their Ops on Friday nights, they would, in turn show up for our ops on Monday and Thursday nights. It's been a great relationship working with IR. We also were actively seeking out other outfits to work with us and form a new coalition of sorts. One that didn't seek out the easy fight. But that fell through the cracks as well.

But I would say our general malaise came when Planetside 2 announced no new content coming down the pipe and everyone on board for optimization. No Hossin. Nothing new. Just reskins, camos, helmets, and that's it. Once that word came down we saw activity plummet. Now we are a husk of what we once were. Sure, we have some people who will still fight under the CDL banner, but most have turned their attentions to other games coming down the pipe.

I hate playing Monday Morning Quarterback because I don't know all the details, but I wonder why SOE didn't have an optimization crew working right alongside the programmers. It just seemed like a bunch of new stuff coming out with little to no regard to actually taking time to break the old code and "Make Game Better" take place in parallel to releasing new content. Wouldn't that have worked better than what we've got now? It's almost as if SOE once again gave up on a Planetside Franchise that could have been better. For example, I see the new PS4 commerical from Taco Bell and I expect to see Scythe and Galaxy wreckage, along with Magrider and Prowler wreckage and a few PS2 empire-specific armor lying in the waste instead of very generic post-futuristic war scenes. SOE missed the mark again with this game. Which is very very sad.

[NewSith]

My outfit is not recruiting, since my outfit consists of me and my friend. And some random dude. We don't know where he came from or whether he can be trusted, but we keep an eye on him. Until we figure out who he is, people better keep out for their own safety.

On a note more serious though, Any outfit with 15- active members is pointless in the game, and thus the question you pose is rather provocative.

[Blynd]

Like sentrosi LFS has a core of peoe who have gamed together for over 10 years I'm. Relative newbie only being 7 years in LFS. But as you said may came people dissapear as always but then they never came back. Most of its to do with lack of contnent not inability toplay it on their rig but just what they were playing they were board of and most have stated as soon as hossin arrives they will log in but other then that they have too many other games to spend their time playing.
I continue to play as do some others but its rare to find 2 of u online at the same time du to work and family commitments o we tend to squad with freindly outfits instead.

[maradine]

We've picked up 2 active members since Hamma's last check in. Still fielding a full squad on Op night, which is more or less what we started with at launch, though the roster's changed over time.

We accept friend-of-friend referrals, but are not otherwise actively recruiting.

[CrazyNoob]

No serious ops in our outfit right now since moats people aren't playing right now. sooo us few have to settle with casual squads where you do what ever you want. Personally I love leading casual squads caz it's fun and relaxing.
I'l probably continue with this kind of squads onece population ingresses since every one seems to love it. :D

[tshapedvisor]

I left my old outfit because I felt they were no longer focused on PlanetSide2. I am still looking for a new outfit to join but it looks like a lot of folks are jumping ship with this game which disappoints me because I love this game.

[LoliLoveFart]

2 squads if its a busy night 1 on off nights, roster has changed significantly with most of the older founding memebers on a hiatus waiting for some sort of update. We arn't actively recruiting however we have somehow managed to convince most players we are 1337 so a lot of players ask to join, and the only universally agreed upon criteria of joining is don't be an ass.

[Sardus]

Still recruiting, still playing.

People seem to log in religiously for our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday raid nights, but activity elsewhere is low as people are playing a lot of other games right now.

We regularly run a full platoon+ on Raid nights.

Could really use some new content updates though. It's a bit stale at the moment.

I'm not talking purely new continents.. i'm talking about connecting said continents together and creating some sort of epic world-wide meta-game which this game unfortunately is still lacking.

I love the combat in this game, but i miss the depth planetside 1 had. That's what kept me going for 10 years.

[Timealude]

As far as I know, our outfit has been very slow as of late. Having maybe 3 people on normally unless we have a special ops night. Generally performance has be the main issue but as noxx said, there's just not alot to keep people interested in the game. We are still recruiting but it is hard to keep members when we have such low activity.

[CrimsonTemplar]

Our outfit? Well Validus Gamers on Mattherson seems to be doing pretty damn well for itself. Having recently decided to change a couple of things in our community, such as 4-5 ops a week (Mon-Fri from 7pm EST), recruits have been trickling in a steady, growing stream.

Despite the problems with PS2, we field between three squads to a platoon and a half during these Ops and good grief, have the battles been intense. Of course we make sure to take breaks from PS2 and play other games, when the majority of players are burnt out or otherwise unable to make it for ops, for the health of our community.

Recruitment is pretty simple. If you join our squads and platoons, you come onto our Teamspeak and follow the orders given. Simple as that. Should you wish to join after that, then simply talk to an Admin or Moderator and that's it. Welcome to our community (Of course it's recommended but not required, to register on our forums).

We strive to fulfill the objective, innovating in whatever way possible partly to keep interest in PS2 going, partly to gain the edge. New tactics are nearly always being discussed. When something needs to be done, VG is there to make sure it is. QRF, defense and lightning (as in blitzkrieg but sometimes literally lightnings) attacks have always been our specialties.

And on top of all that, you'll find a casual group of players, who absolutely love games and other bizarre things. Though we play to win, when we put our game faces on, we also play to have fun.

Sorry if this sounds more like an advertisement but I do think this is true of VG.

[Sardus]

Having frequent ops at the same time of every day is a good way to increase activity I've noticed, for sure. Same thing back in PS1 days. Keep consistent and people will join and stay.

[Kalee J]

Having frequent ops at the same time of every day is a good way to increase activity I've noticed, for sure. Same thing back in PS1 days. Keep consistent and people will join and stay.

I wholeheartedly concur with this. Consistancy builds credibility. In this case consistancy is the regular schedule and credibility is the fact there will be a decent sized (whatever that is for your outfit) group to play with.

This is on of the issues with PS2 though ; it works if there are many people fighitng. People log in and see people fighitng they stay logged in and convince their friends to do the same. However, if you log on and not many people are fighting then people log off and the next person that logs in won't find many people fighitng. So it can spiral down hilll quickly, or it can climb quickly. This up n' down also had a profound effect in Planetside 1 as well.

[NewSith]

I wholeheartedly concur with this. Consistancy builds credibility. In this case consistancy is the regular schedule and credibility is the fact there will be a decent sized (whatever that is for your outfit) group to play with.

This is on of the issues with PS2 though ; it works if there are many people fighitng. People log in and see people fighitng they stay logged in and convince their friends to do the same. However, if you log on and not many people are fighting then people log off and the next person that logs in won't find many people fighitng. So it can spiral down hilll quickly, or it can climb quickly. This up n' down also had a profound effect in Planetside 1 as well.

This is why there are so many people insisting on creating objectives for small groups, apart from pulling a vehicle, and this is why I completely disrespect people saying "go join a bigger outfit".

I disagree with your take on small groups having same issue in PS 1, however. Mostly because 5 people compared to 399 per cont is not even close to 5 people to 1k+ on a continent. Ever wondered why it's more fun to play solo or in a small group during non-primetime?

[Kalee J]

This is why there are so many people insisting on creating objectives for small groups, apart from pulling a vehicle, and this is why I completely disrespect people saying "go join a bigger outfit".

I disagree with your take on small groups having same issue in PS 1, however. Mostly because 5 people compared to 399 per cont is not even close to 5 people to 1k+ on a continent. Ever wondered why it's more fun to play solo or in a small group during non-primetime?

I did not mean to imply that this issue was only one for small outfits in either game. It affects everyone. I agree wwe should have objectives for small groups to enourage that type of game play.

[Rolfski]

I assume this topic is not meant as a brochure so I'll focus on the numbers part, not the quality part.
Numbers wise, I would say my main, BRTD, is in not too shabby state for a mid-seized outfit (350 members), considering the current state of the game.

What probably saved the day for this outfit is, aside from it's long history, is that it's more of an always-on outfit. Having many members from different time zones means we are able to sustain 2+ squads (3 to 4 prime time) from early afternoon to deep after midnight, when the Americans log on. 7 days a week that is, we have no off-days vs ops days.

Another big help in sustainability is maintaining a healthy leader-pool (officers, trainers, recruiters, PL's, SL's, admins, etc.). Ours is pretty big by any outfit's standard, because we learned it the hard way: Having outfits centred around too few people is just too risky in the long run.

Of course this is all a far cry from the days of the beta/early launch, when we would typically sustain 2+ full platoons, 7 days a week.
We're still getting in enough fresh recruits though, to regularly purge out the inactives and sustain an activity rate of 80+%. Not loosing too many members to other outfits either, a few to INI Elite who wanted to play more serious but that's mostly it. We do regularly get in veterans from other EU servers, who changed to Miller.

Special ops nights and training nights have unfortunately become less frequent. This also has to do with the Alert system, which has basically replaced our serious ops. This will hopefully turn for the better with Nexus/battle islands, as we already have 2 Nexus events and trainings planned.

[OdinsPride]

What shape is The Dread Legion in?

Well, in a word? Amazing. I could not be happier, or more proud, of the outfit that we have built from the ground up.
I never dreamed during all those late night Teamspeak sessions with the other founder, Coolkid69, would turn out this well. In my time playing PS2, I saw outfit after outfit fall apart and die, and all for different reasons. It seemed impossible to create something successful, yet in my estimation we have built an outfit that will last.

Some people have different criteria for what constitutes a successful outfit.

Some go by numbers, we have about 50 right now. To some, that may seem like small potatoes. But we have 100% participation over 30 days and 90% participation over 7 days. We run ops 4 nights a week, and many of our members play 5-7 nights a week. Not many outfits can say the same.

Some people base it on stats. We have risen to FIFTH on the Connery server, and continue to gain momentum. Most of our members started with us at lvl 20-40, and we have all risen together to the lvl 60-80 range.

Some go by recruitment. I can honestly say that we are very picky with who we admit into The Dread Legion, and yet we consistently gain recruits every week. We vet our recruits very heavily, and require them to jump through many more hoops than your average outfit. This is to ensure that the guys who are in The Dread Legion want to be in OUR outfit, not just ANY outfit. We have a forum post on SOE forums (https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/the-dread-legion-dl3g-recruiting-teammates.144840/) that has over 2000 views, and consistently generates applications. We run our "pubbie night" once a week and are overwhelmingly complimented for our cohesion and tactics.

We have an absurdly active forum, and consistently have members step up and contribute their hard earned money to support the outfit website and other ventures.

We are active in the community, and have prioritized outfit networking from Day One. We count many quality outfits among our friends, as well as a few formidable opponents (BAID, CASH, and X have all been consummate pros during scrims). We don't judge, nor are we elitist.

We are active on Twitter.
We have a Youtube channel.
We stream on Twitch.
We go where the fights are hard, and don't back down.
We are relied on by our peers, and respected by our enemies.
And we have been invited to participate in the Community Clash.

But the highest compliment to me as an outfit leader is when I get asked by another outfit leader if they can merge with us. I can't think of a better way to judge an outfit's success.


All in four months.


I can't wait to see where we go in the next four. With the group of guys that we have assembled, the sky's the limit. Would go to war for any of them, and do so every night.

[TimoWasTaken]

I started the game around release with twelve friends (my first outfit). I've been able to occasionally tempt them back with double xp weekends and Lan Partys, but essentially everyone has quit but me.

So, I joined T42. Great bunch of guys, well organized with consistently full platoons.

[NewSith]

I agree wwe should have objectives for small groups to enourage that type of game play.

More like create the said objectives to promote staying online when the rest of your outfit is offline.

[DaMann]

My outfit, Quantum Dawn on the Waterson server, still has its core members around with many of our more dedicated players staying with the community just not playing Planetside. We are all still together just in other games until the PS2 is optimized and/or more content releases.

Quantum Dawn still has a steady recruiting presence on our server with open squads and constantly bumping recruiting threads on planetside-universe and the official forums. I also asked some of my officers to showcase our recruitment video in their signature on what forums they frequent while trying to mention our outfit as much as possible.

We also understand that MLG is probably a significant time away however it keeps us motivated and competitive. While we may not be a professional outfit that poaches we are constantly striving to be the best we can become.

So we are still advancing and gaining membership, however it is in a very marginal increase.

[bites]

Previous outfit split due to partial absenteeism and politics aka human bullshit basically :P
(Second time this has happened unfortunately)
Some stayed, core online peeps went.
Split caused what I would call a "watering down" so instead of one full glass, you had two glasses, one half empty, one half full.
But both did not quench the thirst of either group really (as predicted) and result is original group that ran up to 1.5 platoons on the weekend/ops time, is basically gone.
Split off group seems to be surviving (but we saw a lot of their members join our TS as theirs was dead/quiet etc)

Currently Freelance, deciding on an outfit :B

[Zadexin]

Since I don't think the leadership of ODPM (new ODAM) frequents this site I nominate myself to post on their behalf. All agreed? Aye!

ODAM has always had a solid presence in game. Generally 1+ platoons during prime time. We have a very good dedicated core that can field almost 4 squads just by itself with a HUGE reserve of occasional people that can fill most of a second platoon on an ops night. Our general recruiting remains open, as that is the only way to keep the numbers up.

[bpostal]

Started beta with over a platoon of battle hardened veterans. Shortly after launch we had almost three platoons for operations. Currently during prime time we have two/three squads and I don't think I've seen a full outfit platoon in months.
We're recruiting but due to player burnout amongst the leadership (to include SLs and PLs) we're short handed to properly train recruits in every facet of gameplay resulting in a shift from combined arms to primarily infantry.

[Vashyo]

My outfit is dead, lack of interest for the game killed it, it died in a few months after launch. Been playing solo past few months pretty much or with the Trident-Outfit on my alt, though now I'm not playing at all either.